Reading lists

I started thinking about how many books I've read in my life. A LOT!! I wish I could remember them all. I learned to read when I was about 5 and have loved it ever since.
I read everything I could get my hands on - appropriate or not.

Near my home in England, there was an American soldier's camp. They were black soldiers and that confused me somewhat as, in the movies, Americans were white. But they were nice to us. We were nice to them. We had one or two over for dinner and they brought me books. I think they were Mickey Spillane books, but I didn't care.

I did have a little trouble with some of the Americanisms - for the life of me, I could never figure out what "going on the lam" was about. I figured it probably meant running away, but that was from context. From meaning, it was a total loss.

When we came to the United States, the first thing I did was get a library card. I have no idea how I knew about such a thing, but since both my parents worked, I was alone a lot, especially during the summers. Every week, I trudged to the local library and got 10 books, and every week, I took them back all read and took out another 10 books.

They had basket of key rings with cards that grouped similar books together so I read them all - in all the categories. American history, Indian (now Native American) stories, adventure stories, girl's stories, boy's stories. You name it.

In the school year, my reading slowed down as I did have to do school work but I managed to get a lot of reading done, under the covers with a flashlight.

Once I started working at the dime store, it was harder, but I still managed to get quite a few books read.

In nursing school I must have read hundreds of Harlequins. Embarrassing as it is, I loved those romance novels. All pretty much the same - easy reading and so relaxing.
A good escape from a pretty intense studying time. I had boxes and boxes of them to give away when we moved to Northern California. I gave away 12 boxes of non-Harlequin books but I couldn't part with the textbooks (which, of course, I hardly ever read or refer to).

Nowadays, I buy my books from Amazon "used books" - some as little as 1 cent. If I like them I have a hard time parting with them and they stack up - I think I have bookcases in every room except the bathrooms and I'd have them there if there were space. Every once in a while, I donate a bag of the least enjoyable books to the library for their book sale - or I "sell" some of the paperbacks back to the used paperback book store not far from my house. But I average about 3 books a week, unless I've found some 500 page ones I love and that might take a bit longer.

In 1981 we visited England - especially to see my foster Father. My foster Mother had died the year before and I suddenly realized that people in England weren't frozen in time and I'd better go visit before it was too late.

My Foster Father, Mr. Sims, lived by himself in a cottage that was wall to wall books. There were pathways to the kitchen, and to the bathroom but virtually every space was taken up by books. The stairs were lined with books and it was difficult to go upstairs - indeed I don't think he did. He gave me a couple of books he thought I would enjoy - they are here somewhere. But I think I caught the book bug from him. I vaguely remember being read to in his house - Water Babies, I think it was - and I loved those books. If that's so - that I learned to love books from him, I owe him a debt of gratitude beyond my survival. And I realize how hard it was for him to part with any one of them - so that gift was especially touching.

I love to find an author whose writing gives me pleasure and then I'll read everything he/she has ever written. I get on kicks and read everything I can about, say, the Crusades, or Alexander the Great (I do love history). Recently, I've been on a Edward IV and Richard III kick and there are some real gems written about them.

There is a series of books called the Morland series which are books which follow an English family for 500 years. Each book has a good bit of historic research in it and some family stories. I think there are about 35 books in that series and the author has slowed down. The last four books have been on WWI.

I wrote the author and told her to go back and fill in some of the earlier periods as there were 300 year jumps back then. She answered me and said she had contracted to write these with another writer and somehow was not allowed to "go back". I think it's a mistake on the publisher's part. By now she has loyal fans, all lined up waiting for the next book.

I've got Toni hooked on them and my friend, Myra. And now Myra is picking up book one, for another mutual friend. As long as I get them back, I don't much care - I enjoy sharing them with others.

In recent years, I read more non-fiction too. I've read my way through everything ever writen (well, maybe not) on the American Civil War - we went to Gettysburg and that was a big thrill because I knew (at that time) every nuance of the battles. I read a lot about the French Revolution at one point - until I became sickened by it.
I read everything I could find on the Founding Fathers, and I love Benjamin Franklin (I think he might have been a Time Traveler) and I was very angry with Thomas Jefferson (that hypocrite). John Adams was my favorite - cranky, short tempered, politically incorrect, dangerously revolutionary... well, I liked him.

I have my favorite writers and I'm guilty of writing in the margins - sometimes arguing with the writer, sometimes just making comments. Constantine's Sword - which I've had a hard time getting through is just laced with nasty remarks from me. Which is one of the reasons I have to buy books. I could never deface a library book that way.

I read science fiction a lot when I was in Junior High School and spent every spare nickel on Sci Fi magazines. Oh, if I only had them now, they'd be worth a pretty penny. I think for me, they were an extension of the fairy tales I enjoyed as a kid.
But then, I really love a science fiction that can build a perfectly believable world that "fits" together but in an entirely different galaxy. There, too, I've chugged my way through authors until they lose their way. A common problem for authors it seems.

I also love mysteries, and went through dozens of books by each author. It seems mystery authors do write books by the dozen. I enjoy English cosies - especially if they have the "feeling" of England I remember. Of course, the England I remember is not the gritty place of the present. It's more of a village world - but that's where we lived - in an English village.

I also have read a lot of biology and gone through a bunch of evolutionary discussions and explanations. I've read books about studying biology and I'm in awe of those devoted and compulsive scientists who live in the wild, battling extremes of temperatures to study some obscure little creature - and I'm impressed with their wives who go along for the ride.

This last year was the year of the Holocaust. At 72, I finally decided to face it and gradually built up to reading some really painful, wrenching books about it.
I had started off with finding a book of William Shirer's radio broadcasts from Berlin in the '30's and that interested me as it was my parent's time. From there I read his "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and I was off and running.

Nothing I've read about the Third Reich explains how this could have happened. In vain, the authors document the step by step approaches in the early thirties, which gradually led to the mass "liquidation" of six million people in an organized factory like fashion. I guess, it will never make sense to me. And I can only read so much - and then my brain gets fried.

Currently I'm reading a book called "Amish Grace" which "explains" how the Amish can forgive - in this case - a heinous crime against their children. They forgave, with almost indecent haste, the killer of those children. It's a very Christian book and I just don't relate to the concept of forgiving so that I will be forgiven by G-d.
Which is the basic premise of their forgiveness philosophy.

In the first place, I haven't ever done anything near the magnitude of the Nazi's for which I need to be forgiven. I think I kicked the dog once. I step on snails where-
ever I find them....but I don't think they are talking of that level of forgiveness.
It's one of those cases where the basic psychology eludes me. But I am looking for ways to forgive without condoning - because carrying the anger and pain hurts ME - not them. And because I truthfully think it's sick to carry hatred and revenge in my heart on and on into the second and third generation. As I've said before - how does that make me any different then from the Christians who punish the Jews for the supposed sins of the Fathers - 2000 years ago?

I've read other books about forgiveness and the authors, geniuses though they may be, have yet to make a persuasive case or method - for that matter - of forgiving. My trip to Berlin helped me - forgiving is not condoning - it's not a pardon.....but that's as far as I've got.

So books have always been a wonderful escape for me. I live in other worlds, other times, other bodies. Nowadays, I definitely need to live in another body. Preferably, Superwoman's. But I'd take Ma Kettle, if I didn't have to hurt.

So right now, I'm looking for a new author - a new interest. Something will pop up and G-d willing I'll be off and running again.